


like real people do

by consultingcenturion



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Empty Hearse, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Series 03 fix-it, Unrequited Love, maybe just a little touch of co-dependence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 14:32:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1473262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingcenturion/pseuds/consultingcenturion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“ 'I almost lost you today.' There. It was out. He said it. Bastard emotions."</p>
<p>Fire exposes our priorities and Sherlock is finally honest about his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration song for this fic is “Like Real People Do” by Hozier. 
> 
> You’ll probably see some lyric borrowing and allusion. I’m absolutely in love with this song and I probably listened to it 50 times on repeat today while writing this piece. 
> 
> Here’s my take on what should have happened in The Empty Hearse after Sherlock rescues John from the fire.

Like Real People Do by Hozier

He trailed his fingers lightly across John’s arm, feeling the gooseflesh that rose up in their wake. John still smelled of smoke and ash, the acrid stench that clung to the tips of his hair and skin from the fire that Magnussen had built around him. 

_Fire exposes our priorities_ , Sherlock remembers telling Irene. After spending three years cleaning out Moriarty’s web and ensuring the protection of those that he cared about the most, Sherlock didn’t need the fire to tell him that John was a priority. The fear that sunk deep in his stomach though, thick and boiling, when he realized where John was, as he heard him from inside the pyre...Sherlock had never really felt that before. 

He had come to accept that John had moved on, that he had Mary now and didn’t need Sherlock like he once did. Sherlock ensured that by dying in front of him. It was foolish to think that once he came back to life that John would still be there, that he would be waiting and willing. _Foolish_. After pulling John from the fire he came back to 221b with Sherlock, Mary was due to go out of town to visit a friend. Sherlock offered him his own bedroom since it was far less dusty than John’s old one, and Sherlock claimed that he wouldn’t be using it tonight anyways—transport. It was the early hours of the morning, John was asleep on his left side with his right arm slightly extended out towards the other side of the bed. Sherlock’s side of the bed. Sherlock was processing the previous night, compartmentalizing the sticky feelings that had leaked themselves all over his hard drive and were making it hard to think when he couldn’t resist the urge to be near John any longer. He had gently laid down on the opposite edge of the bed, tucking one arm beneath him and he was using the other to lightly swipe small patterns across the skin of John’s arm. He let himself pretend for a little while that John was reaching out towards him, reaching to hold him and pull him closer. 

There was an emptiness in Sherlock, a vacant whooshing sound that resonated from his chest. He wanted so badly to tell John how he felt, even though he hated the notion of sentiment. He couldn’t tell him, he couldn’t ask him to give up what he had with Mary for something that would be dangerous and unpredictable, as was Sherlock’s nature. There was a deep crease of a frown in between John’s eyes that Sherlock reached forward to gently rub his fingers against, smoothing it out, before softly brushing his fingers through the blond hair along his hairline. Just as he was pulling his arm away, John’s eyes fluttered open. With sleep-heavy eyes, he smiled at Sherlock. 

“What time is it?” he rasped.

“Early.” Sherlock stated as he curled up on his side, still inches from John’s outstretched hand. John sighed and stared for another few moments, eyes fluttering open and shut as sleep still touched the edges of his consciousness. 

“What is it?” He asked when he finally emerged from his sleep-haze and saw the somber look on the detective’s face. Sherlock hadn’t been masking his thoughts while John was sleeping and he lost himself momentarily as John was waking up, leaving John to catch a fleeting glimpse of the unadulterated longing on Sherlock’s face. _Damn_. Sherlock had the thought to lie, but he didn’t have will in him to see John dismiss it, even though he knew that the doctor would know that he was lying. 

“I almost lost you today.” There. It was out. He said it. Bastard emotions. He felt the dull ache that had been following him around since the day he jumped off of Bart’s beginning to quell up in his throat and he closed his eyes, not wanting to give _everything_ away. If Sherlock didn’t get himself under control his voice would be quavering the next thing that he knew, and that would be not only embarrassing but so mind-numbingly _mundane_. The next words came out of his mouth of their own accord. Maybe it was the fact that the moonlight was still streaming through his bedroom window and it was softly illuminating John’s face, cutting across his dusty blond hair in a way that felt a little poetic, as useless as the notion might be. Maybe it was that John was still radiating sleep-warmth and Sherlock was close enough to feel it, close enough to pretend that they shared this bed every night and that John was reaching out to him and not his fiancée. He could even pretend that _he_ was John’s fiancé. Whatever the reason, though, it was not because Sherlock had intended to say it, whispered like a dark confession: “I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you.”

You could really hear it, the pain in his voice and Sherlock gritted his teeth to stop any more renegade confessions from exiting his mouth. John was quiet for a moment and Sherlock kept his eyes closed. The silence was thick and Sherlock felt his heart speed up, fearing that he had seriously ruined what little of a relationship with John remained. Sherlock was startled when he felt John grab his wrist with the hand that had been resting between them. He opened his eyes as John laced his fingers with Sherlock’s, gripping tightly. Another thought bubbled up from Sherlock’s chest and he released it, too. “I’m so sorry...for...for leaving you like I did.” He trailed off as John scooted closer to him, their whole bodies inches away from each other. He felt pressure at the backs of his eyes, where tears were swelling and building. John gently laid a hand on Sherlock’s cheek, his thumb rubbing lightly across the detective’s lips. John’s expression was both the saddest and the most pained that Sherlock had ever seen and he kicked himself for betraying his own rock-solid control. He grabbed the wrist of the hand that John had pressed to his face, meeting his eyes. “John…” he breathed. His throat was swollen and his vision was a little blurry from the curtain of tears in his eyes.

Like a magnet, Sherlock could feel himself being drawn towards John with lightning between his lips. He kept his head firmly in place; John wasn’t his to kiss. He opened his mouth to say something else, anything else, anything that would distract him and John from the thick atmosphere that was building in the room when John lifted his head and pressed his mouth against Sherlock’s. Like a spark igniting a flame the detective couldn’t hold it in any longer, he couldn’t keep the raw need that was striking it’s way through his chest down a moment more. He grabbed at John. One hand on his cheek and the other clutched at the sides of his shirt as John rolled to cover him, deepening the kiss. 

Kissing John was like oxygen, deep refreshing lungfuls of life and feeling and relief. He was instantly addicted to the feeling of John’s hands on his neck and face, his thumbs pressing into his jaw as his lips moved against his own. Heart beating madly, Sherlock briefly wondered if it would stop on him; John was both downfall and recovery, constantly bringing him back to life. John swiped his tongue across Sherlock’s mouth and licked his way into his mouth and Sherlock moaned at the wet heat and sensation. He was dizzy and spinning and rushing with exhilarating desire and terror; John was his anchor, biting at his lips and occasionally moving to nip at the skin just below his ears. It was rushed and frantic and a little hard-edged; both John and Sherlock kissed the other like men dying of thirst—an oasis found in each other.  

Eventually John rolled back to his side, pulling Sherlock with him and keeping their mouths connected. John, being the one to start was also the one to stop. He pulled back when their kisses slowed, desire burning deep in their bellies. The two still clutched at each other, John’s fingers were tangled in Sherlock’s impossibly wild hair and Sherlock had one hand fisted in John’s shirt front and the other was pressed against the fiery-hot skin across his ribs, which was exposed where his shirt had rucked up. John pressed his forehead against Sherlock’s. He was breathing deeply, like he had just run a mile at top speed. Sherlock could feel the fast pace of the doctor’s heart in his knuckles that were pressed against John’s chest where he held his shirt in his hand. Sherlock couldn’t breathe, fear was washing through him like acid, the lack of John’s body pressed on top of him left him feeling cold. He had tasted everything that he had ever wanted in John’s mouth, and like the addict that he was, he wanted more. 

They laid there staring at each other for a minute more, John still silent. He pulled Sherlock into his arms fully, wrapping the tall madman in his arms, burying his face into the detective’s mop of dark curls. Returning the embrace, Sherlock pressed his face into John’s chest and inhaled. Smoke and detergent mixed together, a little of John’s soap from his shower blended in with sweat and adrenaline. Sherlock could identify 243 types of tobacco ash, hundreds of perfumes and colognes, dozens of flowers and plants, and there was no smell that was more appealing or more beautiful than the way that John smelled, here in his bed. He couldn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to John’s chest, letting himself luxuriate in the fantasy a moment more.

Finally, Sherlock felt John preparing speak. He would ask Sherlock to delete this moment. He would ask him to forget everything, that he loved Mary and that he was going to marry her. Sherlock knew. He wanted to ask John to stay with him, he wanted to beg for the first time in his life. He wouldn’t, though. He wouldn’t ask that of John.

“I don’t ever want to lose you again.”

“You won’t, John. I won’t leave you behind like that again. For as long as you want me around, I’ll be here. Always your friend.” _Friend_ rolled off Sherlock’s tongue like sludge, it felt heavy and awkward and hateful. 

“I don’t want to be friends with you, Sherlock.”

That stunned the detective. He could only assume that John meant that he wanted _more_ , but the irrational part of Sherlock’s emotion-addled brain made him question if John didn’t feel what Sherlock felt as they kissed. 

“What do you want, John?”

“I want to feel like a person again. I want to feel alive,” his arms tightened around Sherlock and he exhaled slowly, “I want you.” Sherlock felt like he had just had the wind knocked out of him. Hope clawed at his ribs and he couldn’t reign it in. 

“I’m always here for you, John. I’m not going to go anywhere.” Sherlock tried to keep his voice level, the words he was thinking were beating across his brain like a pulse. _I love you, I love you, I’m yours, I’m yours._

“I don’t even feel like a real person anymore. By real I mean that I don’t feel like I fully exist, at least not purposefully. Not without you. I feel like a shadow all the time, but when I’m with you it’s like everything just lights up. I feel whole.” Sherlock knew the feeling. He knew the halfhearted dullness that slid across his skin and weighed down deep in his bones. Sherlock could handle with the emptiness. He had resigned himself to that life long ago—who cared about being a real person when there was the Work and a syringe—pushing those feelings away in the name of transport and good drugs. 

“What about Mary?” He hated to ask. He felt the sadness sag into John’s shoulders when he brought up his fiancée. It took him a moment to answer.

“I don’t know. I made a promise to her. I do care for her, I do—she’s wonderful.” John pulled back to look Sherlock in the eyes. He held his angular face delicately between his hands. “But...I love _you_.”

Words and emotions drifted down Sherlock’s spine; a warm joy trickled and bloomed from the base of his skull to his shoulders and into his fingertips. It filled the spaces between his ribs. Sherlock felt as if John’s words were pulling him from the grave, digging him up from the ground and breathing life into him. He couldn’t find the right words to precisely express to John just exactly how absolute he felt. _I love you, I love you, I’m yours, I’m yours._ He opened his mouth to return the sentiment, this kind not so unwelcome, but John placed his hand lightly over Sherlock’s mouth, stopping him. 

“Don’t—don’t say anything. Please. I want to hear everything that you have to say, oh God, I do. But when you do start talking, I don’t ever want you to stop, and you’ll have to when the sun comes up, when I have to go back to explain to Mary. Can we just have tonight? Before I have to go and deal with life and Mary and everything else. I don’t want to go back to feeling like a half-person just yet. I need you. Just kiss me again, like real people do.”

Sherlock nodded and smiled a little, leaning in to lose himself again in John’s mouth. He knew that whatever was coming next wasn’t going to be easy, but it would be worth it, even all the mundane little things. John fit with him so well that he knew that he wouldn’t have to worry about the thumbs in the microwave or the violin at 3am. He would have to reconfigure his perspective of romantic relationships and sleeping arrangements and sex, all of that would be new, and together they would make all the gradual little accommodations that a person naturally makes when they find the person that they love. 

Just like real people do.


End file.
